


Struck Silly

by daisybrien



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Magic, Awkward Crush, Bickering, Crossover, Crushes, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Hogwarts' Hospital Wing, Hospitalization, Humor, Implied Crush, Implied Relationships, Mutual Pining, Pining, Quidditch, Romantic Friendship, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6269986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Certain feelings can't be hidden forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Struck Silly

**Author's Note:**

> For LevihanAUWeek 2016

Waking from a fit of unconsciousness is often something surreal. 

It is a wonder how Hange hasn’t committed the experience to memory by now, willingly bringing a reckless enthusiasm wherever she goes along with the miracle that she had, surprisingly, only knocked herself out enough times to count on just one hand. It’s happened enough times that her brain should have sucked up the intricacies of it by now, like the sponge lapping up knowledge like it always does; some instances were incidental, like the time she had held her breath in a fit of stubbornness to get out of being grounded that she had fainted from lack of air, or the time she added five too many salamander eyes to her cauldron and it had burst into a puff of smoke in her face; others were not, done under the watchful gaze of doctors her Muggle-born father had insisted take out her wisdom teeth. She can remember the times she has been knocked out, remember lying down on doctors’ tables or strange purple bubbling in a potion brewing, and she can remember waking with a mouth full of gauze or eyebrows singed off her face entirely. Yet, despite her prior encounters with the unfortunate circumstance, that is all she can recall; a simple moment of falling or peace or pandemonium followed by another scene, just immediately mish mashed against the last like an ill fitting puzzle piece. The delicate possibility of the dreamy nothingness of that forceful sleep always slipped from the grasps of recollection. It was always just an absence of a gap between fleeting moments that would leave her with a disoriented body and a brain of cotton that muffled in her ears and blurred her vision.

It is the knowledge of this, rather than the experience itself, that comes to her now, slowly against a pounding head that threatens to implode. It is first met with a flurry of confusion, her body suddenly fully prone instead of soaring through the brisk fall air; one minute, the wind was whipping at her face, grinning under her bulky goggles as she tilted down to reach for a gold glint hovering above the stands, now just abruptly gone, replaced by a bland white ceiling and hospital sheets that itch against her skin. These scenes don’t fit, this stiff bed not her broomstick, only wondering now of the bludger she had spotted zipping through her peripheral against the glint of the sun.

It’s not there anymore, nor is the brilliant blue of the airy sky to be its backdrop or the glare of noon sun flashing against her goggles. She blinks up at the ceiling of the hospital wing, taking a deep breath that aches in her ribs as she tries to hoist herself up. Her attempt fails, dizziness making her head spin like a top and pain making her arm buckle like rubber under her weight. She lets her body flop back onto the mattress with a hearty, defeated thump.

“Looks like someone decided to wake up from their little nap.”

Through the haze, the dreary, dry voice sounds of angel song. She would laugh if sucking air so violently into her lungs didn’t make her chest burn. Instead, she turns her head on the pillow. There is a barraging mountain of colour by her side, nothing more than a fuzzy blurred mound of blues and golds and reds without her glasses. Behind it, a lump of grey sits dejectedly among them, utterly out of place.

“Hey,” she wants to say. The attempt to have the word roll off her tongue with tantalizing mischief is a spectacular failure, nothing more than a pained groan whistling out from her raw throat. She hears Levi snort and wants nothing but to punch him in the gut, curse the same noise right out of him.

“Rise and shine, four-eyes,” he says. She grunts as she tries to sit up again, shambling up on tired and pained bones. This time, there is hand behind her back, just strong enough to keep her from crumpling, barely gentle enough to keep from aggravating the pain. She bends forward, her torso wrapping around the arm slung snug against her in a cast. When she reaches up to scratch at the itching tingle of healing injury, her nails meet bandage, feeling the warmth and crackle of some spell working its magic underneath – no, a spell wouldn’t be suited for a head wound, maybe a draught? As long as it’s Pomfrey’s, she’s got nothing to worry about.

“Not without my glasses, I’m not,” Hange grunts back; they’re the first words to stumble out of her mouth.

The blob of grey moves, extending towards her. She reaches out to it, feeling her hand meet another, grasping cold glass and wiry metal in her palm. She unfolds it, slipping her glasses on gracefully even as they snag at bandage, the world coming into wonderful focus. The bright mountain on her bedside turns out to be an immaculate basket of gifts, cards signed in fancy scrawl with hearts changing colour in jinxed ink sticking out of every corner, some haphazard or half opened candies lined up as last minute tokens. Levi’s scowl follows behind it, lips curled into his familiar frown, one that would belong to the look of someone who had just stepped in Hippogriff dung.

“Well, aren’t you an ugly site,” Hange laughs. She gets a click of the tongue in response, her laughter bubbling strong enough to hurt.

“Make sure you’re not looking in a mirror, first,” Levi grunts. The corner of his mouth twitches up. 

“I’m pretty sure I know what I’m looking at,” Hange says, “and even if I didn’t, I could feel that grouchy glare boring into the back of my head all the way from London.” 

“Glad to see you’re back to patronizing me right out of a fucking coma,” Levi says. He leans forward in his chair. “Shame. For a minute I’d hoped that blow could have knocked the loopy out of you.”

“As much as I want to defend myself against that comment,” Hange laughs, “I feel like I’ll have better luck asking why exactly I ended up here.”

“Bludger hit you right in the temple,” Levi deadpans. 

“Doesn’t explain the cast around my arm,” Hange muses. She looks down to it, trying to raise it off her chest as if to show him, only causing a stabbing pain to bloom at her elbow. Her sentence ends in a hiss of pain.

“You fucking fell?” Levi retorts, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. It’s probably one of them, so she doesn’t snap back. “I thought you would be more perceptive of that. Maybe that bludger knocked more out of your head than I thought.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Then again, you barely saw it coming at you in the first place. Maybe you might be losing some of your edge. Or need new glasses again.”

“Like glasses would help you play Quidditch,” Hange says. She snorts when Levi turns his face away, crinkling his nose in annoyance. The first time she dragged him onto a broomstick was the last, and the ensuing chaos of it was too good of an experience to let him live down. 

She sighs, looking out across the aisle to the rows of empty beds on the opposite wall. Through the windows, the sun sets over the horizon, painting the sky in bronze and gold as it sinks behind the shadow of treetops. Blue and pink clouds cover the sky, patterns drifting in and out against what had been a spotless and brilliant blue canvas, save for her own body fly across it – and inevitably falling from it, she knows now – before the ordeal. She looks over to the pile of gifts over her bedside drawer, lifting her good arm to toy with it.

“You were only out for a few hours, don’t worry,” Levi says, answering the question forming on her face. “Don’t think you’ll miss so much if Pomfrey lets you out by tomorrow.”

“Like she would,” Hange chuckles, “I’ve caused her so much trouble I’m here longer than I’m not. She might as well keep me for safekeeping. I’ve caused the poor woman too much heartache.”

“Wasn’t just you,” he replies. “If you weren’t causing so much chaos over your little stunt, your adoring fan club did.” He nods his head over to the mountain of gifts; a box of Every Flavoured Beans topples from the top of the rickety thing, taking a few cards with it and scattering over the floor.

“Well, they sure are generous.”

Levi stoops to pick the mess off the floor, cursing under his breath. “Suicidal, too, with the way Pomfrey had to chase them out for crowding around your bed.”

“Aren’t I lucky,” she sighs, plucking one card she spies from the mound, tucking it under her armpit. 

“The horde of them was larger than usual, too,” he says. “I think they were just concerned that you almost died.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“You didn’t watch yourself get whipped around like a rag doll,” Levi says. “I think anyone would shit their pants seeing someone fall from the fucking sky like that, thank Merlin someone saved your ass.”

“That much concern?”

“Yeah.” Levi opens the box he picked off the floor, eyes inspecting a bean carefully before he risks putting in his mouth. His face is blank, his mouth working around the candy before his body relaxes, shoulders shrugging at the luck of an getting a good flavour, for once. “I saw one of the Slytherin first years fainting on the stands when they saw you almost hit the ground, Erwin had to carry them in.” Hange snorts, earning her a proud smirk from him. “They almost put the poor kid in the bed across from you.”

“Wait a minute,” Hange muses. The bed creaks under her weight as she shifts, trying not to groan as she winces in pain. She manages to roll onto her side, propping herself up on her good elbow to peer at Levi. 

He squirms against her gaze. “The fuck are you staring at me like that for?”

“Just wait a second here!” Hange gasps dramatically, cocking her head as she smiles at him brightly. “You mean you saw me fall, and the kid faint, in person?”

“What’s it to you?” Levi stutters indignantly. She leans in, and he follows the movement backwards in his chair, furrowing his brow as his face curls in a grimace.

“You went to the Quidditch match!” Hange exclaims giddily. Her smile widens at his flustered face, his chin bobbing in a failure to find the words to defend himself against a mouth agape like a fish in awe, his ears starting to glow a bright scarlet as blood rushes up his neck. “What happened to the Quidditch hating asshole I know?”

“Will you shut up?” Levi snaps. “I got dragged there by a friend, okay?”

“Or did you just come to see me?” Hange muses, giving him a friendly smile.

“Aren’t you ill?” Levi says. “I don’t think you should be talking so much for someone so ill.”

“And you didn’t have to come here to see me either,” Hange continues, cocking an eyebrow at him. “But here you are.”

“God forbid I check up on a friend,” Levi grunts. He heaves himself up onto his feet, the chair scraping the floor with a shrill shriek of wood grinding against wood as he gets up from his seat. 

“Oh, don’t leave,” Hange says. “We have so much to talk about now.”

“I came to make sure you’re okay,” Levi says, “which you obviously are, considering you’re back to your usual talkative self.” He turns, starting his way to the end of  
the ward.

“You don’t have to sound so disappointed about it.”

“Can’t help it,” Levi says, his back to her as he walks off. “I thought I finally got rid of you for good.”

“Levi,” she groans. She slips the card from under her armpit, fingers brushing over the raised swirls on the crisp white stationery, moving in sweeping curls under her fingertips. She flips it open to glance at the familiar, uncharacteristically messy scrawl, crude nickname and all wishing her well with a simple few and blunt choice of words. 

“Levi, wait!” Her cry is earnest, echoing through the bright orange light casting over the empty ward from the sunset eyeing them from beyond the window, peeking at their peculiar interaction through its hiding place of forest. She holds up the crisp white card like a flag of surrender to catch his attention. He stops, heaving a deliberate sigh as he turns around to look at her, exasperated by her antics. When his eyes spot her hand, he seems to grow stiff, eyes alight with shocked softness, his hands the only thing moving as they wring in front of him nervously.

He looks down at his feet, words stumbling from his mouth with flustered hesitancy. “I-it’s just a card,” he stammers, voice loud, as if the anger needs to hide something. “I was worried, don’t think anything of it like you always do.”

“Oh,” Hange says. Her hand falls as she blinks at him. “I was going to ask you who won the match, but –“

“Fucking hell,” Levi groans, lips pressed together as his face flushes, integrity evaporating off him with the heat of his cheeks. He turns on his heel. “Forget it!”

“It’s nice to know you care!” Hange calls after him, watching his robes swish behind him as he storms out of the hospital ward in a panicked and shaking rush, disappearing around the corner before she can ask her question again, left in the dark about the fate of the match that had sent him to and from her in a flurry similar to her own beating and warm heart. 

She props the card back onto the nightstand, sighing through a smile as she watches the yellow light of the evening cast its shadow over her bed and shine over the words inside it.


End file.
